The fire (Annunzio)
The fire (original title: Il Fuoco , 1900 ) is a novel by the Italian writer Gabriele d'Annunzio . In this book he processes his five-year love affair with the actress Eleonora Duse . The book was a great scandal in Italy, but also in the rest of Europe and America.
content
The young poet Stelio Effrena (the author's alter ego ) meets the famous and attractive actress Foscarina (the alter ego of Eleonora Duse ) in Venice . A dramatic love story develops.
Stelio first conquered the masses with an award speech at the Epiphany Festival of Fire and then the famous actress Foscarina. A little later, Stelio witnessed Richard Wagner falling in a gondola and accompanied him home. Fosca becomes jealous of another woman in Stelio's life, but Stelio will only use both women for his higher art. The couple decide to split up. Wagner dies shortly afterwards and Stelio bears him to his grave.
The arid plot is covered by a lush symbolism in which the polarity of fire (life, creativity, passion, power) and water (death, decline, suffering, Venice) dominates everything: the Dionysian hero (designed according to the teachings of Nietzsche ) submits the masses and women, he is the lord of fire, which appears as a torch, stove, sun or swastika . The aesthetic of Stelio, who obviously strives to succeed Wagner, wants to unite art and life and bring life to the height of Wagner's word-sound drama . At the same time he prepares the fascist symbolism of fire and submission. D'Annunzio applies this aesthetic to his own life in the novel. Curzio Malaparte was an admirer of d'Annunzio whom he tried to imitate.
History of origin
It took D'Annunzio from July 14, 1896 to February 13, 1900 to create the manuscript of this novel . This three and a half year time is much longer than the few months it normally took him to write a novel. This is probably explained by the autobiographical reference and the explosiveness of his novel.
In the year it was published by Fratelli Treves in Milan, the book was translated first into German, then twice into English ( The Flame of Life , 1900; The Flame , 1991) and French ( Le feu , 1900). In 1942 a new edition of the German translation appeared in Berlin, in 1988 a new German edition.
Details
On November 8, 1895, D'Annunzio gave the speech at the end of the first Venice Biennale in the La Fenice theater foyer . He took this speech, entitled Allegory of Autumn , from the real world into the world of his novel: Stelio gives it in the Doge's Palace.
German edition
- The fire. Translated from the Italian by Maria Gagliardi, edited by Gianni Selvani; ed. by Vincenzo Orlando. Matthes & Seitz Verlag, Munich 1988.
literature
- Il Fuoco, 1900 , in: Gaetana Marrone, Paolo Puppa: Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies. Routledge, 2006, p. 545.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Review in: Frank Busch: Traumkitsch , in: Die Zeit , December 30, 1988.